my 2 cents on the health care debate
Aug. 19th, 2009 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnation...as if anyone really cares what I think, or has any doubt.
That the anti-health-care protesters who go around comparing Obama to Hitler and coming up with all of these easily-disproven lies are being given any credence at all is an embarrassing waste of time. So here you go:
I wish I still lived in Massachusetts so I could vote for Barney Frank, because it's about goddamn time somebody stopped taking the bullshit seriously and told the "ZOMGZ NAZI DEATH CAMPS AND EUGENICS DEATH PANELS" idiots to shut the hell up. It's not a free-speech issue; it's not even an issue of leftist/rightist partisan politics. It is, quite simply, that the people who oppose health care reform know that since their real platform is indefensible, they must rely on a fake platform, a combination of an idiot's defense of US health care framed in patriotism (which is always guaranteed to both stir up a lot of jingoistic support and dissuade fence-sitters from speaking up lest they appear unpatriotic) and an (apparently successful) attempt to use Fox News and other news organizations in that vein to spread lies and ridiculous allegations.
Meanwhile, hired shills have stirred up enough dust at enough town hall meetings and have been given enough credence by news organizations happy to show off anything they can use against Obama that people are starting to believe their allegations and accusations. Lately I'm hearing (even on NPR) from protesters that they're not paid, or bussed-in or whatever, and I believe them. I think they've just been eating propagandist shit for so long that they can't tell what's real and what isn't. The astroturf campaign did exactly what it was designed to do and stirred up a real campaign from real people, most of whom, I suspect, would only benefit from the very health care reform they are protesting.
The US health care system is an embarrassment. It should be scrapped entirely. I'm a little more hardcore than even Obama's plan, since I think the health insurance companies that have been draining the lifeblood from Americans for decades should be shut down, razed to the ground, their executives jailed, and the profits they made from denying health care to people who needed it confiscated and used to pay for health care for people who need it now. This may be a little extreme, but, well, they deserve it.
A decent, affordable, public option would be a reasonable compromise.
(Health care co-ops would not.)
If the insurance companies can't compete against a government plan, then they are clearly doing something wrong and should re-examine their business model. Arguing against competition reveals their true worry-- that they might be forced to actually compete in the market they've dominated for so many years, and their duplicity and gouging would be revealed.
Here's a fun little article about Sarah Palin's idiot post. It could be extended to basically everyone who subscribes to and spreads the whole "death panel" argument. All kinds of fun there.
That the anti-health-care protesters who go around comparing Obama to Hitler and coming up with all of these easily-disproven lies are being given any credence at all is an embarrassing waste of time. So here you go:
I wish I still lived in Massachusetts so I could vote for Barney Frank, because it's about goddamn time somebody stopped taking the bullshit seriously and told the "ZOMGZ NAZI DEATH CAMPS AND EUGENICS DEATH PANELS" idiots to shut the hell up. It's not a free-speech issue; it's not even an issue of leftist/rightist partisan politics. It is, quite simply, that the people who oppose health care reform know that since their real platform is indefensible, they must rely on a fake platform, a combination of an idiot's defense of US health care framed in patriotism (which is always guaranteed to both stir up a lot of jingoistic support and dissuade fence-sitters from speaking up lest they appear unpatriotic) and an (apparently successful) attempt to use Fox News and other news organizations in that vein to spread lies and ridiculous allegations.
Meanwhile, hired shills have stirred up enough dust at enough town hall meetings and have been given enough credence by news organizations happy to show off anything they can use against Obama that people are starting to believe their allegations and accusations. Lately I'm hearing (even on NPR) from protesters that they're not paid, or bussed-in or whatever, and I believe them. I think they've just been eating propagandist shit for so long that they can't tell what's real and what isn't. The astroturf campaign did exactly what it was designed to do and stirred up a real campaign from real people, most of whom, I suspect, would only benefit from the very health care reform they are protesting.
The US health care system is an embarrassment. It should be scrapped entirely. I'm a little more hardcore than even Obama's plan, since I think the health insurance companies that have been draining the lifeblood from Americans for decades should be shut down, razed to the ground, their executives jailed, and the profits they made from denying health care to people who needed it confiscated and used to pay for health care for people who need it now. This may be a little extreme, but, well, they deserve it.
A decent, affordable, public option would be a reasonable compromise.
(Health care co-ops would not.)
If the insurance companies can't compete against a government plan, then they are clearly doing something wrong and should re-examine their business model. Arguing against competition reveals their true worry-- that they might be forced to actually compete in the market they've dominated for so many years, and their duplicity and gouging would be revealed.
Here's a fun little article about Sarah Palin's idiot post. It could be extended to basically everyone who subscribes to and spreads the whole "death panel" argument. All kinds of fun there.